


Inevitable Outcomes

by sparxwrites



Series: Lifelines [7]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Body Horror, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 18:26:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2357819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oooh. You don’t look too hot.”</p><p>All three of Kirin’s eyes roll to glare at Ridge. “Everything’s fine,” he says, smiling, but there’s a shaky edge of uncertainty to his voice. “I’ve got it all under control.”</p><p>(In which Kirin is absolutely definitely not having any kind of trouble with his mortal shell. Nope. Everything is <i>absolutely</i> under control. No need to worry at all...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inevitable Outcomes

**Author's Note:**

> in case anyone managed to miss the tags, **WARNINGS** for pretty unpleasant body horror. pls tread carefully guys. also, if anyone is confused about the heart-eating thing, check out my "lifelines" series because it's all explained there.

“Oooh. You don’t look too hot.”

All three of Kirin’s eyes roll to glare at Ridge and he bites down on nothing, forcefully rehinges the distended shape of his jaw with a series of angry clicks. “Everything’s fine,” he says, smiling, but there’s a shaky edge of uncertainty to his voice. “I’ve got it all under control.”

A second later he’s hunched over, arms wrapped around himself as something in his back cracks, forcing his shoulders into strange shapes that shouldn’t be physically possible. He groans – but it’s a noise of relief rather than pain, like over-pressurised steam escaping through a vent. When he straightens up a second later, everything looking normal again, he no longer feels like something’s trying to push his spine out through his skin.

Ridge tuts. “How many favours did Lying have to call in to get you that body? I can’t imagine they're too happy with you ruining it…”  
“If I find out _you_ were involved in them finding me, I will be sorely upset,” says Kirin, deceptively mildly. Lightning sparks around his horns, twisting curls of threatening electricity that belie the calm in his voice.

The only answer he gets is giggles – which, really, is answer enough.

“Your gums are bleeding, by the way.” Ridge eyes the trickle of blood over Kirin’s lip with thoughtful curiosity, like the other demigod is a particularly interesting science experiment. “Just thought you might want to know.”

Kirin raises a hand to his mouth out of instinctual shock, and hisses out a noise that doesn’t sound intended for human mouths when the tips of his fingers come away crimson. His fingers are rough, probing the inside of his mouth and trying to find the source, until he finally freezes; pulls his hand away and uncurls it like he’s not sure he believes his eyes.

There’s a bloodied incisor lying in his palm.

He pushes it into a pocket, not daring to drop it in case someone finds it and uses it for unpleasant magic. “Well, that’s inconvenient,” he says, the cheerful tone in his voice sounding a little forced. When he probes the gap left by the missing tooth, he cuts the pad of his finger on a jagged point that’s still mostly hidden in the soft pulp of his gum.

“You’re falling apart!” Ridge sounds more amused than anything, crosses his arms and floats a little closer, nosey. He only stops when the air around him begins to crackle with static, an absent warning from the lightning gathering in sparks around Kirin’s antlers. “What do you even look like underneath all the squishiness, anyway? I don’t actually think I’ve ever seen the real you. What’s your thing? I mean, eyes and horns obviously, but…”

“Oh, there’s more eyes to come.” Kirin glances down at his palms, slightly worried the others are already beginning to show through. “Four more, as a matter of fact.” There’s another crack from his back, sharp and loud as a gunshot, and this time he winces with it.

Ridge whistles low and impressed, ignores the flash of discomfort across the other demigod’s face. “That’s a lot of eyes.”

The look he gets from Kirin is beyond withering – and then there’s another crack, and another, and Kirin’s doubled over as _something_ forces deformed arches into his back that tug his robes into strange shapes, like there’s something under his skin trying to get out.

(There _is_ something under his skin, trying to get out.)

“Wings?” guesses Ridge, absently, cross-legged in mid-air. He looks utterly unphased by the horror-movie contortions Kirin’s shell is going through, the weird twists of its limbs as Kirin struggles to contain himself within its bounds. “Spikes? Extra limbs? … _Tentacles_?” He laughs.

Kirin ignores him, drops to his knees gasping. His lips are peeled back in a snarl, a noise somewhere between static and the peal of a bell echoing weirdly from his throat – inhuman, unnatural. It cuts across the grinding noise from somewhere inside him for a second, and then cuts off as he draws in a slightly choked breath, and another, and another.

Eventually, the twisting and bulging finally retreats under the force of his will. His back is normal again, a smooth curve under his robe, but the dark shadow crawling down his face is more pronounced – as if the effort of retaining a more human appearance has just sped up the rate at which he’s very literally wearing through his skin.

His back may be okay, but his limbs are… less okay. There’s several bloodied fingernails scattered in the grass, pushed out by claws that have grown through the tips of his fingers at random, silver-blue and heavy and wickedly sharp. He doesn’t even want to consider at his legs, his feet. Despite the robes and loose trousers, they look visibly _wrong,_ distorted somehow.

He decides not to get up just yet.

“You know,” says Ridge, conversationally, tapping a thoughtful finger against his lips. “All of this could be avoided if you weren’t so insistent on being _vegetarian_.” The word comes out mocking, derisive.

“I’m not _killing people_ to retain my physique,” says Kirin, distaste dripping from every syllable, and Ridge waves a dismissive hand.  
“They don’t stay dead for long, it’s _fine_ ,” he says, grins widely like the whole thing is some kind of joke. “Look. Look! Wait a second, I’ll show you.”

He blinks out of existence with an overly-dramatic swirl of his coat. Kirin sighs, stays sitting down – not quite up to examining what, exactly, has happened to his legs and trying to work out how to balance on them – and worries absently at the new, bloodied gap in his teeth.

Ridge comes back a moment later, giggling, right arm stained up to the elbow with gore. “Here!” he says, landing lightly on the ground and for once deigning to walk. He crouches down in front of Kirin, presses the still-warm heart he’s holding into the other demigod’s hands. “Delicious heart, freshly served.”

At least Kirin’s mostly sure it’s a villager heart, rather than a human one, which is a small mercy.

“You’re disgusting,” he says, drops the heart onto the ground and wipes the blood off his fingers in the long grass.  
Ridge whines, hops into the air again so he can perch on nothing and kick his legs like a child having a temper tantrum. “If you didn’t want it, you didn’t have to waste it,” he says, a little sulkily. “You could have just given it back.”

Kirin ignores him, instead shifts so he’s sitting as close to cross-legged as he can get with the strange shapes his legs have been bent to. His shoes seem to have come off at some point. When he traces the strips of cloth wound round his legs down to where his feet should be, his fingers find cloven hooves instead, glossy keratin fused to warped skin.

At least the gap in his mouth has filled, his new tooth pointed and razor-edged – sharp enough he nearly cuts his tongue on it when he tests the feel of it. His gums ache with the promise of more to come.

“I’m telling you, if you don’t eat soon, you’re going to burn through that body completely.” There’s no joking in Ridge’s voice this time, something serious that almost rolls over to concern. “The Circle doesn’t seem entirely keen to help you get another one, and _I’m_ certainly not going to help you if you’re stupid enough to ruin this one out of sheer _stubbornness_.”

“I’m _working_ on it,” says Kirin, sharpness finally bleeding through the calm. “It’s under control. I’m fine.”

(He tastes blood in his mouth, feels the way one of his molars gives when he presses against it with his tongue; thinks that maybe, just maybe, he might not be.)

“You don’t look it.” Ridge straightens up, no longer sitting in midair but standing, and brushes the front of his coat down with a slightly fussy gesture. “You need to eat, Kirin. I know you like to pretend you’re different – but in the end, we’re the same, you and I.” He smiles wide and delighted and not entirely friendly. “ _Embrace_ it.”

Kirin hisses irritably, resists the urge to just reach into his mouth and just yank out the incredibly distracting tooth. “No,” he says, firmly, tries to push himself to his feet and only just manages it without overbalancing. He feels wobbly, coltish, hunched over to try and compensate for the strange changes his center of gravity has undergone, legs trembling and refusing to cooperate.

Laughing, Ridge shakes his head. “You will, eventually,” he says, somewhere between a threat and a promise. There’s a flash of _something_ in his eyes, a faint spill-over of power in the air that crackles like fire – and for a moment, his shadow is vast and sprawling and _terrifying_. “You will.”


End file.
